Who We Really Are

I think there is a disconnect between who we are and who the world wants us to be. To think of it scientifically, we must be as much as “who we are” and as little of “who the world wants us to be”. Generally speaking, the world doesnt want us to be anything. At the risk of sounding pessimistic or nihilistic, Nobody cares. People don’t want other people to be anything – unless they have something to gain from you being a certain way.

This disconnect is important, and if there is no disconnect, I would hypothesize that one is  living the “perfect” life. One would then have very little split personality, and everything would be crystal clear. But this can also be categorized as a delusion. But that disconnect is not so important. What is important, however, is that we understand this disconnect. To come back to the exception: People don’t want us to be anything, or don’t care that we act any certain way, except they have something to gain from us acting a certain way.

If you get something in response, say you get love (as a lover) or get paid (as a work-horse), to being a certain “someone” that others want you to be, then it’s a fair barter. If you think it’s not, then you mustn’t engage in that barter. That said, We must always be who we are. One must think independently and to respond as we see fit – not simply as others expect us to. Except in the case of a barter, as mentioned above, but even then, I presume some leeway can be found. We can always convince the counterparty why we must NOT act a certain way, but then fear would get the better of us.

This is not a moral supposition. We shouldn’t be ourselves for moral reasons. Because to be ourselves for moral reasons would make us be who the world wants us to be. “You should morally be such and such” says the world, and we adhere to it. We must simply be ourselves for the sake of our mind and soul. For the sake of happiness and fulfillment. Otherwise, we’re in a state of constant worry of who the world wants us to be. One might ask oneself “How and what does the world want me to be today?” and act accordingly. And this will keep changing – and we will keep changing too. Sometimes we are this and at other times something else. But to be ourselves, we need only be ourselves.

I suppose the next logical thing to speak of would be “what if who I am is hurting others?”, say a raging alcoholic or a sadist? Then there’s two things – 1) Most people don’t realize they are hurting people and that they need to change; and 2) The counterparty, the people or groups of people being affected, also have a claim in disengaging from the perpetrator .

If they continue to accept the misery (pleasure for some sadists) and one continues to provide them with that misery, then no ONE is to blame. Both party have at least the notion of free will and can disengage the other. But to stay not yourself, for the sake of pleasing others, is the lowest form of humanity. I’m not sorry to say that, but that people do so, is a sorry fact.

Love for men and women

A man ought not to ask for a woman’s love. He must only imply it, make her wonder. Asking for it keeps her at bay.

A woman mustn’t ask for it either. She must simply pretend to not care. She them becomes a magnet for a mans love, more irresistable than otherwise.

As much as it hurts me to write this, and believe it, its true. One cannot pretend to stay idealistic about love. We are all, at some level, pretentious folk after all.

The value of things is greatest when found in places where they’re not expected.

Why Philosophy?

I think it has been well said that philosophy is pointless, but that is true only in context. While we are still merely “surviving” only our basic instints kick in – that is food, love and shelter (and love as a basic instinct is debatable). But once we are past that point, and we are not merely surviving, but can spend time on other activities that give us pleasure – the need for philosophy kicks in.

That’s when we can (and ideally, must) spend time thinking about the nature of things, of ourselves. But there is a limit to that too, and the enjoyability of philosophy is very subjective. Some people will just not “get” it. So you can’t go around talking about it with everybody.

But the need for philosophy is important for another reason too: It is philosophy, through our consciousness, that separates us from all animals. We can think about thinking, about the importance of intentions and consequences, about morals and dilemmas.

The subjectivity of our universe is brought in by philosophy, where you can make anything right, where context is everything. The world is not black and white for human beings, and that is thanks to philosophy.

A different heaven and hell

Let’s keep God aside for a second. Whether you think of it as a concept, or you believe he really exists, is something very personal.  I believe many people could not exist without a belief in something much, much, greater than themselves. conversely, some others could not exist knowing that there could be someone like God. These are beliefs (or if you believe, realities) that aid you to live faithfully and comfortably as a Human Being.

But, regardless of your theological beliefs, we can think of states of mind as heaven and hell. When a person is content, or happy in the moment (for happiness is fleeting), he creates a heaven for himself. When he (or she) is positive, he finds beauty in this world. When he is determined, he finds faith in himself. He creates his own heaven. He believes in something far greater than the evil of this world, and something far greater than even himself – he believes in the goodness, and the wholesomeness of the state of mind as heaven.

The opposite is also true. A spiteful, revengeful person, or a good person who is spiteful only for the moment, creates his own hell. He hates, and is negative, and wants to see the others “burn”, so to speak. But whether the others “burn” or not, he certainly burns in his own hell. The fury of the hell he created for himself. One wouldn’t simply walk into the doors of hell, would they? But often we seem to do it. By creating such a hell.

It is fairly well written and documented that we can always choose to be positive, thereby, in this argument, create a heaven for ourselves. It is also probably the hardest thing to practice. With that knowledge, I wonder, if this practice can be cultivated? The Buddhists seem to have done it, The Christians seem to have done it, The Muslims find their Mecca in their mind. So is it true for Hindus. We are left with Atheists (like myself), and they create their own heaven too.

It isn’t about religion after all, so whether you are religious or not, you can keep aside that argument, once again. The idea is simple to cultivate this state of mind over time. The flipside of this is not to never be angry, or have negative emotions. That is something I feel many people get wrong – as human beings, we will have positive emotions just as well as we will have negative emotions.  We shouldn’t strive to never be angry, but rather to accept that we are angry and not act upon it. 

This is, I would think, the alternate heaven and hell. Not a place in Space and Time, but in our consciousness. In our minds. Heaven and hell exists — to be sure — but from our own choosing.

Peace and Love for now.

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Twitter: @trbetala

Treating People As They Deserve To Be Treated

I’m not quite sure if the text in this post is understandable to the reader, and whether this text is applicable or too vague. I still venture to post this, and hope beyond hope, that it helps someone with their dilemma, or at least make them think about their own actions and fairness.

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One of the more bittersweet feelings in life is realizing you have been doing something wrong for a major part of your life. For the very moment, this feeling seems mostly disastrous – like treating someone unfairly, or treating yourself unfairly – but although in the moment we can come to hate our actions — and consequently, ourselves — for having behaved a certain way, there is another side to the coin, As with everything.

The other side is fairly obvious considering the “bittersweet” element, but we scarcely think of it that way. The past is bygone, and as every practical being must do, we must let it be a bygone. We realize that we have realized our wrong. From this moment on, to not be that person who does that wrong. It is a great thing to realize this, I would think. Firstly because not many people are lucky enough to realize this, and secondly, even after realizing this, people don’t get a chance to make a change in the way they behaved previously. (I say “They”, but a perhaps more right thing to say is “we”).

That is the most important thing — to realize it And to make the necessary changes to not do it again. And it is yet easier said than done. We are still more or less the same people that did those actions, with a little mental enlightenment into what we did, and sometimes WHY we did it. The reasons why we are unfair have hardly changed. That is, the reason why we treat these people (or ourselves) are either the same, or unknown to us. We must take a mental break, and a physical break if necessary.

To try to understand the “why”. Every action is rooted into its why? We do something because we feel a certain way about that something. Understanding this is perhaps the best way to not continue doing the same thing over and over again. Sometimes it may take us several tries to not doing it, but the perseverance should ideally get us there eventually.

Dividing our actions into What and why are very important. And Im not one to love indefinite categorical naming of aspects and sub aspects of things, but for change – What and Why are terribly important. With what — we understand what we are doing wrong, and mustn’t continue doing it. With why — we understand reasons for having done it, and correct those reasons if it feels fit.

Perhaps this is important too, I would say. We do not have to change the why if we do not see it objectively fit our circumstances. That is, if someone deserves us being mean (someone wicked, perhaps, or someone who is averse to change for selfish reasons) we must be mean to them. We must treat people fairly, if and only if they deserve fairness. To treat people fairly, when they dont deserve it, and to treat people un fairly when they deserve fairness, are both unfair actions.

Actions are subjective to the person doing it, and the person whom the action affects. These both aspects of the action should be considered objectively AND subjectively, and the action should be taken or not, respectively.

That’s all for now, folks!

Tweet me @trbetala

How Can We Understand Happiness Through Our Actions?

I believe that  our happiness (or unhappiness) is the direct results of our thoughts and actions. From my Buddhist leanings, I have come to learn this as well as apply it in practice. Our unhappiness, however, we believe, are the actions of others. This is the general temperament of the present days. We feel like we are the victims in most situations. But, are we really?

This is in direct contrast to believing that our own actions make us unhappy.

To understand what I’m really trying to say, we might have to break our actions in into two parts. These two parts, are

1. The intentions of our actions: That is, why we do certain things; and
2. The consequences of our actions: or the effect that our actions have on other people or the world at large.

Most of us only focus on one of the parts. It is how we are trained to think, and there is nothing wrong with that, except that it makes us unhappy. When we focus only on one part of our action – the intention or the consequence – we often don’t get the complete picture. We are deluded or worse  still, we feel like we are being treated unfairly. In reality, there might be no unfairness involved at all. It’s also possible that we are being unfair but are not able to recognize the unfairness in ourselves.

Lets take an example. Joe and Jane are friends, and Joe does nice things for Jane, such as cook and clean. Most of us  would love that, but Jane is a rather independent person who would like to cook for herself and clean for herself. If Jane tells this to Joe, he can choose to react in two ways. Either, he can accept it, and understand that although his intention was the help Jane, it did not help her consequently. Or he may only focus on his intention, and fail to see how his actions were unfair on Jane (because she didn’t want him to do all those nice things). Consequently, Joe may think  that Jane is treating him unfairly when there is actually no unfairness involved in Jane’s actions.

Lets dissect Joe’s actions: His intention was to make Jane’s life easier by cooking and cleaning for her, and therefore save her time. The consequences of his actions basically meant that Jane didn’t get to do her own cooking and  enjoy it. Granted that this is a rather extreme example, it is nonetheless true. And it exemplifies the two aspects of an action perfectly.

When doing something for others with good intentions, it is often important to consider the consequences of our intentions from the viewpoint of the recipient. Will they like it? Do they want us to do it? Should we just ask them?

The intentions and consequences of our actions matter not only from an individual position, but also when it comes to groups of people. Another example would be someone who is in a position to impact a large group of people, with his actions. Bernie Madoff springs to mind. As do many of the hedge fund managers of yesteryear. If they really thought about the consequences of their actions — making many people jobless or wiping out the wealth worth many entire nations — as much as they did about  their intentions, the economies of our world might not be in such a state as they are.

Of course, an argument can be made that even thinking about the consequences, or knowing about the consequences, might not have stopped many of them from committing the moral crimes as they did (This is as true for actions that affect individuals as they do for groups). But there are still many people who have absolutely no idea that their actions have consequences. We think purely in terms of intentions. Perhaps understanding the duality of each action, will help them the most. Many of us, who do not already know how the consequences of our actions will affect others are perhaps going to benefit the most.

Science sums this up perfectly: every action has (an equal and opposite) reaction.

But I can also say this, even if our intentions are good, but our consequences aren’t, and we are aware of  them, it’s a battle half won. Perhaps someday, we won’t take those actions at all. Maybe not tomorrow or in the near future, but some day. For me, this revelation was akin to enlightenment in terms of my actions. I still don’t always think about the consequences and the intentions separately, but I’m on that path. Its a long journey, as most good things in life are.

If something makes me unhappy, I try to understand it from the other person’s perspective. Maybe I was being unfair after all? This is not to say that we must give in to the demands of others at all times, and believe that it is WE who are unfair, always. It is simply a rational approach to understanding the reason for our unhappiness or delusion.

“An unexamined life is not worth living” -Plato

It is only through this understanding can we point the reason which makes us unhappy, or at least get a general direction on the right path. Without understanding the real reason behind our unhappiness, we might never get to the root cause and turn our life around. Perhaps we might be eternally doomed to believing we are the victims of this world. But, again, are we the victims or do we just believe that we are?

In the short term, it may seem unnecessary to care about the consequences of our actions… But, in the long term, there is a solid reason to care about the consequences of our actions. The people around us have a direct impact on how happy we are. If we care about how we affect them, they will be happy, and consequently, we will be happy too.